Our Trials and Experiments

Trials in data centres utilize the energy optimized/aware/adaptive workload management techniques in specific real life scenarios, coordinated with local renewable energy providers and city energy governors.

The results of the project research are evaluated in two existing Smart City trial test beds (Trento and Barcelona) and one special lab experimentation (at HP); the effectiveness of the DC4Cities system is measured in two separate phases.

In the first phase the trials specifically tested the data centre controller and energy adaptive sub-systems developed during the first cycle of research and development.

n of workload around urban data centres can benefit Smart Cities’ energy efficiency, and also help them to provide critical IT services to the respective users. Therefore, the second phase of the trial considers two scenarios for data centre federation: autonomous peer to peer federation and Smart City assisted federation. The second phase of the trials implements the peer to peer federation model in all trial sites (Barcelona, autonomous province of Trento and HP Labs) and the assisted federation model among Barcelona data centres (CSUC and Barcelona City Council, the last one as a Smart City energy manager).

Renewable

A very challenging “experiment” was performed to evaluate the extreme limit of renewable energy adaptiveness, i.e. the possibility to offer IT services from a simple infrastructure powered by few solar panels, with minimal dependency on external power grid.